Mariah Carey, she of the five-octave vocal range, is showing off her new figure. The platinum pop diva, who gave birth to twins in April, recently dropped 30 pounds -- but that's not all that's changed. Carey says pregnancy has made her voice stronger.

Certainly sex hormones, like testosterone and estrogen, affect the voice -- for proof, just listen to any boy going through puberty. The same is true of women, according to a University of Iowa Voice Academy page -- the quality of their voice may change depending on whether they're menstruating, pregnant, breastfeeding or menopausal.

In fact, it goes on to say, because of these changes, "European opera houses used to excuse singers from singing during premenstrual and early menstrual days."

Surprisingly little work seems to be out there studying pregnancy on singing voices -- but one 2011 study from the Journal of Voice tracked the performance of trained singers during the last 12 weeks of pregnancy and about 11 weeks after birth, as well as their estrogen and progesterone levels during that time. They found, among other things, "a perceptible decrease in vocal brightness."

Many of these changes sound like they're more negative than positive; so whether being preggers could improve a voice such as Mariah Carey's remains an open question.

On an unusually chilly Friday evening, Culver City's public pool bustled with activity. Dozens of swimmers kicked and splashed as bundled-up coaches called instructions from the deck. At one end of the pool, Joe McCauley swam a lap of freestyle. His arms circled slowly, deliberately. His torso...

Saturday night at the Forum, Canadian rock trio Rush takes its Los Angeles fans on a trip back through time. It's often said that the band makes a big sound for having only three members, and for more than four decades 62-year-old lead singer and bassist Geddy Lee's double duties have been straining...

In the late 1980s, a handsome, muscle-bound transplant to Santa Monica from South Africa called Johnny G (for Goldberg) came up with an idea for indoor cycling classes he called Spinning. Indoor cycling soon became a fitness mainstay, but he could hardly have anticipated the scene today.

When it comes to a healthful diet, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That's the new approach a nutritional advisory committee has taken in its recommendations to the federal government for the upcoming 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

You can probably guess that Yoga Blend, a friendly studio in Burbank, has classes influenced by the various schools of yoga. Its schedule has about 70 classes a week, including vinyasa flow, belly dancing, core yoga and basics, along with classes for pregnant women and children. Workshops offer...